The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

For neither does this author, any more than that other, who has been quoted here on this point, think it wise for the philosopher to rush madly out of his study with his EUREKA, and bawl to the first passer by in scientific terms the last result of his science, 'lording it over his ignorance' with what can be to him only a magisterial announcement. For what else but that can it be, for instance, to tell the poor peasant, on his way to market, with his butter and eggs in his basket, planting his feet on the firm earth without any qualms or misgivings, and measuring his day by the sun's great toil and rejoicing race in heaven, what but this same magisterial teaching is it, to stop him, and tell him to his bewildered face that the sun never rises or sets, and that the earth is but a revolving ball? Instead of giving him a truth you have given him a falsehood. You have brought him a truth out of a sphere with which he is not conversant, which he cannot ascend to – whose truths he cannot translate into his own, without jarring all. Either you have told him what must be to him a lie, or you have upset all his little world of beliefs with your magisterial doctrine, and confounded and troubled him to no purpose.

But the Method of Progression, as set forth by Lord Bacon, requires that the new scientific truth shall be, not nakedly and flatly, but artistically exhibited; because, as he tells us, 'the great labour is with the people, and this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.' He will not have it exhibited in bare propositions, but translated into the people's dialect. He would not begin if he could – if there were no political or social restriction to forbid it – by overthrowing on all points the popular belief, or wherever it differs from the scientific conclusion. It is a very different kind of philosophy that proceeds in that manner. This is one which comprehends and respects all actualities. The popular belief, even to its least absurdity 'is something more than nothing in nature'; and the popular belief with all its admixture of error, is better than the half-truths of a misunderstood, untranslated science; better than these would be in its place. That truth of nature which it contains for those who are able to receive it, and live by it, you would destroy for them, if you should attempt to make them read it prematurely, in your language. Any kind of organism which by means of those adjustments and compensations, with which nature is always ready to help out anything really hers, – any organism that is capable of serving as the means of an historical social continuance, is already some gain on chaos and social dissolution; and is, perhaps, better than a series of philosophical experiments. The difficulty is not to overthrow the popular errors, but to get something better in their place, he tells us; and that there are men who have succeeded in the first attempt, and very signally failed in the second. Beautiful and vigorous unions grew up under the classic mythologies, that dissolved and went down for ever, in the sunshine of the classic philosophies. For there were more things in heaven and earth than were included in those last, or dreamt of in them.

In your expurgation, of the popular errors, you must be sure that the truth they contain, is in some form as strongly, as effectively composed in your text, or the popular error is truer and better than the truth with which you would replace it. This is a master who will have no other kind of teaching in his school. His scholars must go so far in their learning as to be able to come back to this popular belief, and account for it and understand it; they must be as wise as the peasant again, and be able to start with him, from his starting point, before they can get any diploma in this School of Advancement, or leave to practise in it. But when the old is already ruinous and decaying, and oppressing and keeping back the new, – when the vitality is gone out of it, and it has become deadly instead, when the new is struggling for new forms, the man of science though never so conservative from inclination and principle, will not be wanting to himself and to the state in this emergency. He 'loves the fundamental part of state more' than in such a crisis he will 'doubt the change of it,' and will not 'fear to jump a body with a dangerous physic, that's sure of death without it.'

First of all then, the condition of this lamp of tradition, that is to burn on for ages, is, that it shall be able to adapt itself to the successive stages of the advancement it lights. It is the inevitable condition of this school which begins with the present, which begins with the people, which descends to the lowest stage of the contemporary popular belief, and takes in the many-headed monster himself, without any trimming at all, for its audience, – it is the first condition of such a school, conducted by a man of science, that it shall have its proper grades of courts and platforms, its selecter and selectest audiences. There must be landing places in the ascent, points of rendezvous agreed on, where 'the delicate collateral sounds' are heard, which only those who ascend can hear. There is no jar, – there is no forced advancement in this school; there is no upward step for any, who have not first been taught to see it, who have not, indeed, already taken it. For it is an artist's school, and not a pedant's, or a vague speculator's, who knows not how to converge his speculation, even upon his mode of tradition.

The founders of this school trust much in their general plan of instruction and relief, to the gradual advancement of a common intelligence, by means of a scientific, but concealed historical teaching. They will teach their lower classes, their 'beginners,' as great nature teaches – insensibly; – as great nature teaches – in the concrete, 'in easy instances.' For the secret of her method is that which they have studied; that is the learning which they have mastered; the spirit of it, which is the poet's gift, the quickest, subtlest, most searching, most analytic, most synthetic spirit of it, is that with which great nature has endowed them. They will speak, as they tell us, as the masters always have spoken from of old to them who are without; they will 'open their mouths in parables,' they will 'utter their dark sayings on the harp.' They know that men are already prepared by nature's own instruction, to feel in a fact, – to receive in historical representations – truths which would startle them in the abstract, truths which they are not yet prepared to disengage from the historical combinations in which they receive them; though with every repetition, and especially with the pointed, selected, prolonged repetition of the teacher, where the 'ILLUSTRIOUS INSTANCE' is selected and cleared of its extraneous incident, and made to enter the mind alone, and pierce it with its principle, – with every such repetition, the step to that generalization and axiom becomes insensibly shorter and more easy. They know that men are already wiser than their teachers, in some – in many things; that they have all of them a great stock of incommunicative wisdom which all their teachers have not been able to make them give up, which they never will give up, till the strong man, who is stronger, enters with his larger learning out of the same book, with his mightier weapons out of the same armory, and spoils their goods, or makes them old and worthless, by the side of the new, resplendent, magic wealth he brings with him.

The new philosophy of nature has truths to teach which nature herself has already been teaching all men, with more or less effect, miscellaneously, and at odd hours, ever since they were born; and this philosopher gives a large place in his history, to that vulgar, practical human wisdom, which all the books till his time had been of too high a strain to glance at. But 'art is a second nature, and imitateth that dextrously and compendiously, which nature performs by ambages and length of time.' The scientific interpreter of nature will select, and unite, and teach continuously, and pointedly, in grand, ideal, representative fact, in 'prerogative instances,' that which nature has but faintly and unconsciously impressed with her method; for he has a scientific organum, and what is more, – a great deal more, a thousand times more, – he has the scientific genius that invented it. His soul is a Novum Organum – his mind is a table of rejections that sifts the historic masses, and brings out the instances that are to his purpose, the bright, bold instances that flame forth the doubtful truth, that tell their own story and need no interpreter, the high ideal instances that talk in verse because it is their native tongue and they can no other. He has found, – or rather nature lent it to him, the universal historic solvent, and the dull, formless, miscellaneous facts of the common human experience, spring up in magic orders, in beautiful, transparent, scientific continuities, as they arrange themselves by the laws of his thinking.

For the truth is, and it must be said here, and not here only, but everywhere, wherever there is a chance to say it, – that Novum Organum was not made to examine the legs of spiders with, or the toes of 'the grandfather-long-legs,' or any of their kindred; though of course it is susceptible of such an application, when it falls into the hands of persons whose genius inclines them in those directions; and it is a use, that the inventor would not have disdained to put it to himself, if he had had time, and if his attention had not been so much distracted by the habits and history of that 'nobler kind of vermin,' which he found feeding on the human weal in his time, and eating out the heart of it. This man was not a fool, but a man. He was a naturalist indeed, of the newest and highest style, but that did not hinder his being a man at the same time. He and his company were the first that set the example of going, deliberately, and on principle, out of the human nature for knowledge; but it was that they might re-return with better axioms for the culture, and nobility, and sway of that form, which, 'though it be but a part in the continent of nature,' is as this one openly declares, 'the end and term of NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, in the intention of MAN.' His science included the humblest and least agreeable of nature's performances; his Novum Organum was able to take up the smallest conceivable atom of existence, whether animate or not, and make a study of it. He has no disrespect for caterpillars or any kind of worm or insect; but he is not a caterpillar himself, or an insect of any kind, or a Saurian, or an Icthyosaurian, but a man; and it was for the sake of building up from a new basis a practical doctrine of human life, that he invented that instrument, and put so much fine work upon it.

With his 'PREROGATIVE INSTANCES,' he will build height after height, the solid, but imperceptible stair-way to his summit of knowledges, so that men shall tread its utmost floors without knowing what heights they are – even as they tread great nature's own solidities, without inquiring her secret.

The shrewd unlearned man of practice shall take that great book of nature, that illustrated digest of it, on his knees, to while away his idle hours with, in rich pastime, and smile to see there, all written out, that which he faintly knew, and never knew that he knew before; he will find there in sharp points, in accumulations, and percussions, that which his own experience has at length wearily, dimly, worked and worn into him. It is his own experience, exalted indeed, and glorified, but it is that which beckons him on to that which is yet beyond it; he shall read on, and smile, and laugh, and weep, and wonder at the power; but never dream that it is science, the new science – the science of nature – the product of the new organum of it applied to human nature, and human life. The abstract statement of that which the concrete exhibition veils, is indeed always there, though it lie never so close, in never so snug a corner; but it is there so artistically environed, that the reader who is not ready for it, who has not learned to disengage the principle from the instance, who has had no hint of an illustrated tradition in it, will never see it; or if he sees it, he will think it is there by accident, or inspiration, and pass on.

Here, in this open treatise upon the art of delivering and teaching of knowledge, the author lays down, in the most impressive terms, the necessity of a style which shall serve as a veil of tradition, imperceptible or impenetrable to the uninitiated, and admitting 'only such as have by the help of a master, attained to the interpretation of dark sayings, or are able by their own genius to enter within the veil'; and after having distributed under many heads, the secret of this method of scientific communication, he asserts distinctly that there is no other mode of dealing with the popular belief and preconception, but the one just described – that same method which the teachers of the people have always instinctively adopted, whenever that which was new and contrary to the received doctrines, was to be communicated. 'For a man of judgment,' he says, 'must, of course, perceive, that there should be a difference in the teaching and delivery of knowledge, according to the presuppositions, which he finds infused and impressed upon the mind of the learner. For that which is new and foreign from opinions received, is to be delivered in ANOTHER FORM, from that which is agreeable and familiar. And, therefore, Aristotle, when he says to Democritus, "if we shall indeed dispute and not follow after similitudes," as if he would tax Democritus with being too full of comparisons, where he thought to reprove, really commended him.' There is no use in disputing in such a case, he thinks. 'For those whose doctrines are already seated in popular opinion, have only to dispute or prove; but those whose doctrines are beyond the popular opinions, have a double labour; the one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate; so that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes AND TRANSLATIONS to express themselves. And, therefore, in the infancy of learning, and in rude times, when those conceptions which are now trivial, were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes, for else would men either have passed over without mark, or else REJECTED FOR PARADOXES, that which was offered before they had understood or judged. So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes are, for it is a rule in the doctrine of delivery, that every science which is not consonant with presuppositions and prejudices, must pray in aid of similes and allusions.'

The true master of the art of teaching will vary his method too, he tells us according to the subject which he handles, – and the reader should note particularly the illustration of this position, the instance of this general necessity, which the author selects for the sake of pointing his meaning here, for it is here – precisely here – that we begin to touch the heart of that new method which the new science itself prescribed, – 'the true teacher will vary his method according to the subject which he handles,' for there is a great difference in the delivery of mathematics, which are the most abstracted of sciences, and POLICY, which is the most immersed, and the opinion that 'uniformity of method, in multiformity of matter, is necessary,' has proved very hurtful to learning, for it tends to reduce learning to certain empty and barren– note it, —barren– 'generalities;' – (so important is the method as that; that it makes the difference between the fruitful and the barren, between the old and the new) 'being but the very husks and shells of sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expressed with the torture and press of the method; and, therefore, as I did allow well of particular topics for invention' —therefore– his science requires him to go into particulars, and as the necessary consequence of that, it requires freedom —'therefore'– as I did allow well of particular topics of invention, 'so do I allow likewise of particular methods of tradition.' Elsewhere, – in his Novum Organum – he quotes the scientific outlines and divisions of this very book, he quotes the very draught and outline of the new human science, which is the principal thing in it, and tells us plainly that he is perfectly aware that those new divisions, those essential differences, those true and radical forms in nature, which he has introduced here, in his doctrine of human nature, will have no practical effect at all, as they are exhibited here; because they are exhibited in this method which he is here criticising, that is, in empty and barren abstractions, – because it was impossible for him to produce here anything but the husks and shells of that principal science, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture and press of the method. But, at the same time, he gives us to understand, that these same shells and husks may be found in another place, with the kernels and nuts in them, and that he has not taken so much pains to let us see in so many places, what new forms of delivery the new philosophy will require, merely for the sake of letting us see, at the same time, that when it came to practice, he himself stood by the old ones, and contented himself with barren abstractions, and generalities, the husks and shells of sciences, instead of aiming at particulars, and availing himself of these 'particular methods of tradition.'

He takes also this occasion to recommend a method which was found extremely serviceable at that time; namely, the method of teaching by aphorism, 'without any show of an art or method; not merely because it tries the author, since aphorisms being made out of the pith and heart of sciences, no man can write them who is not sound and grounded,' who has not a system with its trunk and root, though he makes no show of it, but buries it and shows you here and there the points on the surface that are apt to look as if they had some underlying connection – not only because it tries the author, but because they point to action; for particulars being dispersed, do best agree with dispersed directions; and, moreover, aphorisms representing a BROKEN KNOWLEDGE, invite men to inquire farther, whereas methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure men as if they were at farthest, and it is the advancement of learning that he is proposing.

He suggests again, distinctly here, the rule he so often claims he has himself put in practice, elsewhere, that the use of CONFUTATION in the delivery of science, ought to be very sparing; and to serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to minister and excite disputations and doubts. For he says in another place, 'As Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands, to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight, so I like better that entry of truth which cometh peaceably, with chalk to mark up those minds, which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention.'

He alludes here too, in passing, to some other distinctions of method, which are already received, that of ANALYSIS and synthesis, or CONSTITUTION, that of concealment, or CRYPTIC, which he says 'he allows well of, though he has himself stood upon those which are least handled and observed.' He brings out his doctrine of the necessity of a method which shall include particulars for practical purposes also, under another head: here it is the limit of rules, – the propositions or precepts of arts that he speaks of, and the degree of particularity which these precepts ought to descend to. 'For every knowledge,' he says, 'may be fitly said to have a latitude and longitude, accounting the latitude towards other sciences' (for there are rules and propositions of such latitude as to include all arts, all sciences) – 'and the longitude towards action, that is, from the greatest generality, to the most particular precept: and as to the degree of particularity to which a knowledge should descend,' though something must, of course, be left in all departments to the discretion of the practitioner, he thinks it is a question which will bear looking into in a general way; and that it might be possible to have rules in all departments, which would limit very much the necessity of individual experiment, and not leave us so much at the mercy of individual discretion in the most serious matters. Philosophy, as he finds it, does not appear to be very helpful to practice, on account of its keeping to those general propositions, so much, as well as on some other accounts, and has fallen into bad repute, it seems, among men who find it necessary to make, without science, as they best can, rules of some sort; – rules that are capable of dealing with that quality in particulars which is apt to be called obstinacy in this aspect of it. 'For we see remote and superficial generalities do but offer knowledge to scorn of practical men, and are no more aiding to practice, than an Ortelius's universal map is to direct the way between London and York.' And what is this itself but a universal map, this map of the advancement of learning?

All this doctrine of the tradition of sciences, he produces under the head of the method of their tradition, but in speaking of the organ of it, he treats it exclusively as the medium of tradition for those sciences which require CONCEALMENT, or admit only of a suggestive exhibition. And as he makes, too, the claim that he has himself given practical proof, in passing, of his proficiency in this art, and appeals to the skilful for the truth of this statement, the passage, at least, in which this assertion is made, will be likely to repay the inquiry which it invites.

He begins by drawing our attention to the fact, that words are not the only representatives of things, and he says 'this is not an inconsiderable thing, for while we are treating of the coin of intellectual matters, it is pertinent to observe, that as money may be made of other materials besides gold and silver, so other marks of things may be invented besides words and letters.' And by way of illustrating the advantages of such a means of tradition, under certain disadvantages of position, he adduces as much in point, the case of Periander, who being consulted how to preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid the messenger attend and report what he saw him do, and went into his garden and topped all the highest flowers; signifying that it consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the nobility and grandees. And thus other apparently trivial, purely purposeless and sportive actions, might have a traditionary character of no small consequence, if the messenger were only given to understand beforehand, that the acts thus performed were axiomatical, pointing to rules of practice, that the forms were representative forms, whose 'real' exhibition of the particular natures in question, was much more vivid and effective, much more memorable as well as safe, than any abstract statement of that philosophic truth, which is the truth of direction, could be.

As to the 'accidents of words, which are measure, sound, and elevation of accent, and the sweetness and harshness of them,' even here the new science suggests a new rule, which is not without a remarkable relation to that 'particular method of tradition,' which the author tells us in another place, some parts of his new science required. 'This subject,' he says, 'involves some curious observations in rhetoric, but chiefly POESY, as we consider it in respect of the verse, and not of the argument; wherein, though men in learned tongues do tie themselves to the ancient measures, yet in modern languages it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of verses as of dances.' The spirit of the new philosophy had a chance to speak out there for once, without intending, of course, to transcend that particular limit just laid down, namely, the measure of verses, and with that literal limitation, to the form of the verse, the remark is sufficiently suggestive; for he brings out from it at the next step, in the way of formula, the new principle, the new Shaksperian principle of rhetoric: In these things the sense is better judge than the art. And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an unfit subject, it is well said: – 'Quod tempore antiquum videtur, id incongruitate est maxime novum.''